I'll be home for Christmas (if I can get a ride) and other songs we don't know any of the words to

 It was more or less your typical family holiday gathering. "Shall we sing a Christmas carol before we eat?" I suggested. "Oh yes!" my nieces clapped as we ran through our shared repertoire of merry melodies and were shocked (and a bit embarrassed) by how truly limited we were, musically-speaking. I have a long history of being kicked out of bands so I wasn't actually all that surprised. We narrowed our selections down to three...then two...then one. When we realized that we couldn't actually remember a song past the first five words, we decided to hum. It was very moving.

Conversations with reunited loved ones were filled with deeply intimate revelations of personal growth, dreams, and aspirations. My eldest niece shared her trepidation regarding learning to SCUBA dive as she has trouble holding her breath in public restrooms for substantial lengths of time.  While it had never occurred to me to practice breathing techniques in a public restroom, I could understand her concern.

I feel that I almost rocked the gift-giving portion of the evening despite the fact that I gave my 80-year-old

parents microscopic puzzle pieces. Perhaps it would prove to be rehabilitative therapy for my Dad's macular degeneration. You could also kindly ignore the fact that the instructions for the talking animatronic hamster that I gave my great-nephew were in Chinese ("Hey! How do you get this thing to work?" my sister-in-law yelled, shaking the gangsta-outfitted rodent vigorously. "How do you get this thing to work?" the critter squeaked back. We might not be able to read Chinese but apparently the hamster can speak English.) and instead focus on this unique opportunity to expand our language base. I was a bit concerned when my toddler nephew turned my adorable (and peace-loving) Little Nutbrown Hare puppet into a post-apocalyptic vampire bunny intent on the destruction of humankind but I feel that's more on the kid than me.  I reached a true low point as I listened to my college-aged nieces sadly share their stories of readjusting their current modes of mobility from motor to moccasin. As both of their cars were now out-of-commission, it felt that presenting them with gas cards would be ironically cruel. Better to have them think that I didn't love them enough to bother to buy them a gift...yes

Overall though, I'm going to chalk it up as a win. No one was irreparably traumatized (if you don't count Little Nutbrown Hare). I'm currently making plans to trade the girls' gas cards in for pedometers.  I'm not sure that my nieces will be inspired by the idea that their journey of a 1,000 mile commute to school begins with a single step and will then be followed by many, many more steps. In retrospect though, I wish I'd brought the sheet music for Walking in a Winter Wonderland.